Various types of riding mowers are well known. For example, riding mowers are used for cutting grass on golf courses, parks, cemeteries, stadiums, school grounds, and other venues having relatively large areas of turf. Riding mowers are so named because they are driven and operated by an operator who is carried on or “rides on” the mower as opposed to a walk mower in which the operator walks on the ground behind the mower.
Riding mowers can carry different types of grass cutting units. For example, reel cutting units are often used when close or precision cutting of grass is required, such as on golf greens. Such reel cutting units comprise a rotatable cutting reel that sweeps the grass against a sharpened bedknife to cut the grass. Alternatively, riding mowers also employ rotary cutting decks which carry one or more cutting blades that rotate in horizontal cutting planes to cut the grass. Rotary cutting decks are more often used when very high precision grass cutting is not required.
The ground speed of riding mowers is typically controlled by a variable speed traction drive system that includes an accelerator of some type. The accelerator is often a foot operated pedal, though hand operated accelerator levers have also often been used. The ground speed of the mower increases as the accelerator is advanced. For example, when the accelerator comprises a foot pedal, the more the foot pedal is depressed by the operator, the faster the mower travels.
In addition, the ground speed of the mower is usually infinitely adjustable between zero and an absolute maximum ground speed corresponding to a position of maximum accelerator advancement. The absolute maximum ground speed of the mower is usually a relatively fast transport speed that allows the mower to be driven relatively quickly between different work areas, e.g. from one golf green to the next golf green. However, the quality of cut degrades, whether the mower is equipped with reel or rotary cutting units, if one attempts to mow at the relatively fast transport speed. In addition, if the operator should inadvertently run a cutting unit into some type of obstacle while traveling at the transport speed, the cutting unit is often severely damaged.
The operators of riding mowers are often instructed by their supervisors or bosses, e.g. by a golf course superintendent or by a commercial mowing contractor, to mow at a slower mowing speed and to use the higher transport speed only when travelling between work sites. If this instruction is followed, then the mower will deliver the quality of cut for which it was designed and the risk of severely damaging the cutting units will be greatly reduced. Unfortunately, however, this instruction is sometimes ignored by the mower operator, particularly when the supervisor or boss is out of sight and is not visually observing the operation of the mower. The mower operator usually has an interest in finishing as quickly as possible, especially when mowing under adverse weather conditions. Such mower operators often follow the natural temptation to mow even when driving the mower at its transport speed.
Thus, there is a need in the art, unmet until the present invention, to provide some system that allows an operator to mow only when the mower is travelling at the slower mowing speed and not at the higher transport speed.